January 31-February 6: This week in Memphis history

Saturday, February 01, 2014, Vol. 7, No. 6

Faron Young

1974: A nine-member delegation from the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce began a visit to four cities in Japan at the invitation of the Japanese government. The visit to Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Nara led to the opening of the Sharp manufacturing plant in Hickory Hill four years later.The four-city visit was billed as a chance to exchange opinions “on a broad range of matters and problems of mutual interest.” But Chamber chief executive officer Ronald E. Leigh also had talks scheduled, according to The Daily News, “with one corporation that has had representatives here on four occasions,” including the week before the Memphis delegation left for Japan. That corporation was Sharp Corp. The plant, which in the beginning made color televisions, was a breakthrough for direct foreign business investment in Tennessee and Memphis.

1963: On the front page of The Daily News, City Court Judge William Ingram to owners of the city’s printing plants during a speech at the Bon Ton Café: “A democratic form of government, my friends, is a process not a machine. Good or bad government is the product of the political processes of an organized society of human beings.” By the end of the year, Ingram would be elected mayor of Memphis, the last under the city commission form of government.

1955: Faron Young headlined two shows at the Auditorium that included Ferlin Husky, The Wilburn Brothers and Elvis Presley.